As we know and have mentioned on our Podcast several times, Surface RT is highly restricted to only one single x86 legacy program and that is the Office software that comes on the tablet. All other x86 legacy applications can't run on the device, until now. Thanks to mamaich on the XDA developer forum, the ARM tablet can run classic windows games in fact, at least some.

We talk about CES 2013 highlights, including the 4K TV from Samsung, the Razer Edge and Nvidia Shield Gaming tablets, is Apple making a low cost iPhone, Amazon AutoRip, billions of Earth size planets in the galaxy and more.

We talk about CES 2013 highlights, including the 4K TV from Samsung, the Razer Edge and Nvidia Shield Gaming tablets, is Apple making a low cost iPhone, Amazon AutoRip, billions of Earth size planets in the galaxy and more.

Adding to the list of recent Microsoft RTM's, they have announced that Office 2013 is at RTM, which also includes SharePoint 2013, Exchange 2013, Project 2013, Lync 2013, Visio 2013 and the Office 365 service.

Microsoft has yet to unveil their official Surface tablet pricing since the news broke in June. It would seem that Lenovo is revealing some clues to what it plans to offer for pricing on Windows RT tablets.

Mozilla has come forth with a big reveal that Windows RT (Formerly Windows 8 on ARM) will only support a single browser: Internet Explorer. From a technical side Firefox would be able to run in Metro mode on Windows RT, but would be crippled to the point of unusable. Only Office 15 is allowed to run in the classic Desktop Mode with Windows RT.

The issue has to do with API access. Third-party developers will only have access to the WinRT (Metro) API. However, Microsoft's software will have access to the lower level Win32 API. Firefox could build Firefox for ARM but without the ability to tap into the Win32 API it can't compete with Internet Explorer.

Some of the logical reasons behind this move by Microsoft is that they have not wanted to port x86 code to ARM, largely because these ported apps may not have the efficiency and stability of a low-power ARM tablet requirement.

Another reason could be due to malware attacks. Since a browser is an open pit for malware attacks on the operating system making it so there is only a more secure Metro Internet Explorer could be a protection mechanism.

The Tech-Stew Take Home

This move by Microsoft seems akin to the early dark days of the 90s and possibly a move to gain market share with Internet Explorer, at least on the surface. Hopefully the primary motivation here is that they are just trying to protect the operating system and by association the end-users giving them a more pleasant experience with less risk of malware attacks.

The downside is that due to this restriction it means we won't see any browsers with add-ons on Windows ARM tablets. Nor will there be any HTML5 web apps. Competition gets squashed as a result and the chance of ARM tablets winning out over x86 tablets becomes less likely.